Live Review: Dan Sultan, Caiti Baker, Morgan Bain

Early attendees were treated to the lush-yet-ferocious vocals of Morgan Bain, backed by mesmerising synths and booming drum tracks. Relying heavily on backing tracks to form the majority of his sound, Bain still managed to include a very human presence through his conversational banter and infectious melodic hooks.

Caiti Baker left it all on stage tonight at Manning Bar. Baker's set involved jazz and hip-hop based tunes, accompanied by a talented double bass player and drummer, with a lo-fi guitar backing track. The Darwin-based singer's engaging personality (and charisma to boot) was epitomised through her dancing, which proved to be as fluent and effortless as her vocal delivery. Musically gifted with plenty of lyrical intrigue, Baker's pitch-perfect abilities culminated when precisely mimicking the high-pitched clarinet solo in Make Your Own Mistakes. The end result of this delivery sounding very similar to Mariah Carey.

"I didn't know if anyone was going to come," Dan Sultan confessed to a packed-out crowd. Wrapping up a tour promoting his latest single Magnetic, Sultan and his band put on an extravagant rock show to a mature audience that soaked up every moment with attentive appreciation.

Sultan's confidence on the guitar came as an added bonus to the lucidity of his overall performance, allowing his showmanship to shine without hindering his technical skills. Waiting On The End Of The Phone combined a Hendrix-like guitar riff with Robert Plant-sounding vocals, the end result an infectious psych-rock trance. Patrons could barely suppress their "woo"s during Sultan's solo numbers, his vibrato vocals receiving full attention. This portion of the night was cut short due to a ringing fire alarm. This caused the lead man to appease those unsettled with a string of jokes before inviting his band back on stage early to drown out the alarm. Finishing off the main set with the aforementioned Magnetic, Sultan used his encore to thank punters and staff alike. His humble appreciation never faltered during the night and was warmly reciprocated by the crowd.